for me.

Tonight campus church, titled "for you", was a communion service. a communion service held for a couple thousand people. There was a huge cross set up on the middle of the floor in the vines center. when walking in i received a sheet of paper with a cross on it and a blank box at the top of the cross. my name was put in that box, with the word "sinner" written underneath. as each row of people filed down to the cross to get their cracker and juice, Isaiah 53 was up on the screen. I sat there and read this passage:


Who has believed what they heard from us?
And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned every one to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?
And they made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for sin,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;
by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
make many to be accounted righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out his soul to death
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and makes intercession for the transgressors.



After my eyes moved across every word i sat in silence. in disappointment with myself.Jesus had it set for Himself in Heaven, but when He was asked by His father to go to earth, to live in a world full of sin, he agreed to go. Thats love. He died, on a cross, bore every single one of each of our sins. i can't even imagine. not just a few, but everyone. I am a sinner. i think of how much i sin, and how sometimes i realized that i have, and then do nothing about it. who am i to ever just sit back and relax, because i know that im going to heaven? this is where im disappointed in myself. I do have a conscience, i have the holy spirit in me, i know what is right and wrong...but sometimes the wrong things seem easier. dumb excuse. there is no excuse. yes i know i am human, but when it comes down to whether or not i try not to sin, i "slip up" one too many times. so my purpose for sharing is...

i sat there tonight and got completely upset with myself. i have this What am i doing to further my relationship with God? not much. yea, the Bible is opened in my hands, and i try to read everyday. but i have not pushed myself enough to make it a habit so that i cannot go to sleep at night without spending time with God. thats what i want. i want to be as close as i can with the one who bore ALL of my sins, so i could spend eternity in heaven. I have to learn to trust in God more, sometimes theres this faze where im always trusting in God and then i get overwhelmed with the things that are going on in my life, and i find myself trying to work everything out, taking on every problem and only building more stress. I know i have this joy that can very well emanate from inside me because i do have a great relationship with the God of the universe, and i need to show it more. i do have a thing for fearing the future. i find it easy to think about the future and the problems it holds, and i get scared. God isn't the "I will be", Hes the "I AM" He is here in the present, to help and to assure me that it is not hard to just live in the moment. I could go one for a while on things that i want to improve on in my life. but im not going to. Its just that...tonight i know God was grabbing my attention. I saw and read a reminder of just how much He has done for me. Now the question i have for myself is, what am i going to do for him?